We're Still Here
by Nyhlus
Summary: The New X-Men have moved back to X-Mansion, now the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning. Life has never been easy or normal for these teens. But now they might actually be able to have some fun, if teenage agnst and antics don't get in the way.


Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or any of its characters. They are owned by Marvel and the Disney Corporation.

**The Morning**

Paras, aka Indra slowly rose out of bed. Indra looked like any normal teen except for the markings on his body, and that his skin was purple. He looked around his room. It was a small dorm room with two identical single beds and desks. The other bed in the room was empty. It belonged to Anole. Considering all the constant changes that had been going on, rooming with Anole seemed to be the one constant. They had been roommates back at the old school together, in San Francisco, and even Utopia. Now once again they were roommates in Jean Grey's School for Higher Learning.

Indra was still having problems readjusting to moving back to the school. There had been some good times here, but mostly dark memories of losing friends. Memories he did not want to be reminded of. Still, it was not like moving to the West Coast had been much better. All he hoped for was some quiet moments here in the school, less action. He was not a violent person, even after turning his back on his faith, violence was not something he wanted to take part in. It was something that should only ever be done in extreme circumstances.

Getting out of bed, Indra brushed his hand through his red hair. He exited his dorm room and headed for the bathroom in only his boxers and a t-shirt. Once inside he went straight to the mirror. He gave himself a good look over. He was still a pretty unintimidating scrawny kid. It was something he did not need to worry about, looking tough. Those who worked hard on looking tough, amassing muscle, did not have the ability to form retractable exoskeletal armor plates and weapons. Still he was in good shape. If there was one thing being an X-Man meant, that was having good cardiovascular exercise.

After having a quick shower he returned to his room. He changed into his school uniform. It was weird having to wear these uniforms, he was used to wearing uniforms before but they were much different. Those were fighting suits, while these were regular formal suits. Black dress pants, white collared shirt, black blazer and tie. He adjusted his tie and grabbed his bag. When he first arrived with the X-Men this get up was not something he thought he'd be expected to wear. However he found himself wearing black formal suits more often than anyone would have ever wanted.

When he exited his room he took out a slip of paper from his blazer's pocket. The paper had a scribbled hand written list of his class schedule. It looked like his first class for the day was Mutant Literature with Professor Guthrie. He turned around and started to walk in the direction of the class. It was weird for him getting back into the grove of an actual class schedule. They still had classes on Utopia but they were always in a flux depending on what the latest attack was.

Indra walked through the long halls, out of the boys corridor and into the main section of the school. There were other students all hustling to make it to class. It was weird because if he was not paying attention, it would have seemed just like any other school. He looked outside the window as he passed looking out on the grounds. Wolverine was out there giving some sparing lessons with Armor. It was something Wolverine required with all students. Indra was not looking forward to his sparing lessons. Wolverine had always been someone who intimidated Indra.

When he looked back into the hall he saw Kid Gladiator, a tall teen with a red Mohawk and red sunglasses, about to walk right into him. Indra quickly stepped to the side but was still clipped on the shoulder by Kid Gladiator. The force almost made Indra fall to the ground. "Out of the way, simple human!" Kid Gladiator called out as he kept walking, not looking back. Indra just kind of brushed himself off and continued walking towards his class which was just a few steps away. He saw Anole was leaning against the wall right outside of the classroom door.

"Jeez, what an asshole." Anole commented. Anole and Indra have the same body size, in that way they look similar. However Anole as a reptilian green skin, spikes along the top of his head like a mohawk, and one of his arms is really large and intimidating covered in spikes too.

Indra walked up and took his place leaning against the wall of the hallway right next to Anole. "Yeah, whatever. I can deal with big egos." Indra said back.

"Hey listen man, I was talking to Rockslide. A bunch of the guys are going to play poker tonight, you in?" Anole asked.

"Yeah sure." Indra responded. It had been a while since a bunch of the students came together and just hung out. It seemed like on Utopia there was almost no free time. And when there was free time it was always short lived by some kind of imminent threat.

Anole nodded his head, "Cool."

Just as Anole finished talking they saw Professor Paige (Husk) begin down the hallway. She walked right up to the open doorway of the classroom before turning and looking at Indra and Anole. "Come on boys, class is about to begin." With that both Anole and Indra followed Professor into the classroom.

**That Night**

Indra was sitting at a table in the student lounge playing Texas Hold'Em poker. He looked down at his cards and then up at those sitting there with him: Anole, Match, Hellion, Rockslide, and Quentin Quire (Kid Omega). "I fold." Indra said softly tossing his face down cards to the middle of the table. He leaned back in his chair and looked around at his surroundings. The student lounge was fairly large. It was big enough that multiple groups of students could be doing different things and not disturb each other. Off to the side was a huge television screen which a bunch of students mostly female including: Armor, Bling!, Trance, Mercury, were watching a film.

"Damn it, I fold too." Match spoke as he tossed his cards to the middle of the table too. Match's head is always covered in flame and his skin glows. A smile grew on Hellion's face as he collected what chips were piled up. Hellion looked the most normal out of all of them. His black hair, medium height. The only major characteristic was the fact that he did not have any arms. Instead he had metal hands he controlled with his telekinesis.

"Whose turn is it to deal?" Rockslide asked. Rockslide is the largest of the group, his body is made up completely by stone, giving the appearance of a large stone 'golem'.

Anole grabbed the cards scattered on the table and dropped them in front of Rockslide. "Yours." Anole answered. Rockslide just rolled his eyes as he began to shuffle the cards. It felt weird for Indra to be hanging out with these guys back at the school. When they attended this school before, before everything got so serious. Back when there was more than 27 students. Indra and Anole were hardly considered cool or be with the popular crowd. Yet here they were playing poker with Hellion, king of the school, and his right hand man Rockslide.

"So what do you guys think of the school so far?" Rockslide threw out there as he began to deal the cards out to each person. Everyone remained silent for a second as they collected their cards and began the initial round of betting.

"It beats Utopia, that's for damn sure." Match responded as he tossed his cards away. He leaned back in his chair.

Hellion shook his head when he looked at his two cards. "I have not lost any major limbs yet, so I'm going to call that a major plus. The only major drawback I think has to be the severe lack of available chicks."

"I hear ya." Rockslide agreed. Anole did not bother saying anything, instead he focused on his cards and how he was going to play that hand. Indra really did not know what to say in this sort of circumstance. He had not been the most outgoing in terms of relationships and yet he was almost married not that long ago. They probably would not understand.

"That's what happens when a school doubles as a killing ground." Quentin Quire spoke. Punk rock telepath with a pink mohawk. "Getting dates become harder. Though I'm sure if anyone was into necrophilia this school is probably an all you can eat buffet."

Silence filled the table as everyone stared at Quentin Quire with wide eyes. Rockslide then stood up from his seat. "What the fuck dude! Those are our friends your talking about!" He called out in surprise and disgust.

"Hey guys, I just thought of something." Indra spoke. "Why are we playing poker with a telepath anyway?"

Everyone looked at each other before they all stood up along with Rockslide. They were all looking down at Quentin with anger in their eyes. Quentin raised up his hands, "Okay fine, I know when I'm not wanted. Later losers." He then got up from his seat and exited the student lounge.

Those left at the table all sat back down on their seats. "Speaking of which I don't even remember inviting him." Hellion mentioned. "Any of you guys invite him?" They all looked confused and shook their heads. "Figures." Hellion then turned his attention to the students watching a movie on the other side of the room. "Any of you want to take Quentin's place?"

All of those watching the film turned and looked at Hellion. They then all looked at each other. Before anyone else could do or say anything Bling! stood up and started walking to the poker table. She took a seat where Quentin had been sitting. Bling!'s bonemarrow is made out of diamond giving her body a dark grey crystalline appearance. "Yo." She spoke as she grabbed Quentin's cards, she looked at them and then moved some of the poker chips in front of her into the pot. "Who's winning?"

"Hellion." Anole informed her. "Rockslide's losing the most. He'll be gone within the next few hands at the latest."

Rockslide shook his head as he added more chips into the pot. "Not my fault, I just haven't had the best hands, that's it."

"Dude, it is totally you're fault. You have the worst poker face I have ever seen. You're face is made of solid rock and I can still read you like an open book." Anole said back with a laugh.

"That's not true! I happen to have a great poker face!" Rockslide tried to defend himself.

Anole took a second to just stare at Rockslide who was a little confused by this, turned and looked at the others. Anole then looked down at the cards on the table. "You have a three-of-a-kind."

Rockslide eyes widened for a second. He then looked back down at his two face down cards. Then when he looked up he saw that everyone was looking at him. "Hellion still needs to call this round, I'm not to going reveal my cards yet. I'm not that dumb."

"I am curious to know how Hellion has such a good poker face." Match mentioned as he looked down at his cards. He rolled his eyes in disgust before throwing them to the centre swearing under his breath.

Hellion moved his chips into the pot with his power as he lounged in his chair with his metal hands crossed. "What can I say? When you're Emma Frost's favourite student and receive one on one tutoring. You need a good poker face, if you catch my drift."

Now that the betting was done, Bling! flipped over her two cards to reveal them. "Two pairs. Wait why would you need a good poker face with Emma Frost? I mean she can read you thoughts." Bling! asked. "There's not much point in masking your facial expressions."

"I think you're giving us too much credit here." Hellion explained. "Just because she can read our thoughts does not mean she does all the time, especially us students, male students. If you were Ms. Frost, would you really want to read the mind of your students. I'm sure after the twentieth time she reads her students thoughts and gets 'don't look at her chest, dear god don't look at her chest' that she'd stop, or at least I'd hope so. Rockslide, hurry up and show your cards man."

Rockslide let out a grunt as he turned his cards over. "Three-of-a-kind." To which the others let out a laugh. "Yeah, yeah, shut up."

"Full-House." Hellion said with a grin as he flipped over his cards still not moving his hands. The others all looked down at his cards in disbelief.

"Okay, I'm calling bullshit." Match declared. "This guy is totally cheating."

"I guess I'm just that much better than all of you. It's okay, it's best you start finding that out now in something as trivial as poker. It will help the coping process when you grow to realize that I'm that much better than you guys in just about everything else." Hellion went on.

"Alright, even I want to punch him right now." Indra commented. That got a large amount of laughter from the others. "This is fun though." Indra felt the need to point out.

Anole nodded his head. "It's been a while since we've just been able to sit back. It reminds me of back when we were here before. Like before all that shit went down. When we were just students and all I feared was Wolverine's gym class."

Everyone was silent for a second as they thought back to the old times. When the halls were filled with students. They each had their own squads. Hellion, Anole, Match, and Bling! were the leaders of their squads. Some of the most promising students. But those halls eventually became empty as only 27 remained. Since then that number, 27, has slowly continued to decrease. They had all lost friend after friend. Icarus, Quill, Wolf Cub, Onyxx. There was always that voice in the back of their heads that they'd be next. It was something Indra had difficulty at first dealing with. Slowly he's been able to get used to it. This new school promises a great future for all of them. But they know surviving just a little bit longer will be enough of an accomplishment.

"Let's do this again. Maybe make it a regular thing?" Match suggested.

The others nodded in agreement. "There's nothing I enjoy more than kicking all of your asses." Hellion said still full of himself.

"Also who doesn't love watching Rockslide lose horribly?" Anole said before shooting Rockslide a grin.

"But you know what we need to make this even better?" Hellion asked. "Beer. And I guess some coolers for the lady." To which Bling! replied with a mean stare and a middle finger.

"Now that's something I can agree on." Rockslide said.

"Excellent. I'm glad you volunteered Rockslide. I don't think there is a more trusting individual for providing us with the beer." Hellion directed with a smile.

It took a second for Rockslide to figure out what Hellion said, "Wait, what? Shit."

_Afterword:_

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I was catching up with the current X-Men comic continuity and was disappointed with the lack of focus on any of these characters. That's why I decided to write my own. I have been a large fan of the New X-Men since the beginning and read most of everything they have been in. I'm not completely sure about the direction I want to take this story. I think Indra will be the primary focus but a lot of other characters will play just as much a role. The next chapter for example I think will have a LOT of Rockslide, mostly his shenanigans trying to get the beer. There won't be very much action in this story. Mostly trying to focus on the highs and lows of these characters trying to adjust back to a somewhat normal life. I don't know, we'll see.

Please Review. I'd really like some feedback for this story as I try and figure it more out. And the more I get the more motivated I become.


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